Updates

Train Hard – Race Easy is an old saying but remains true today, get the work done in training and the race day will tend to look after itself.  For most of us the race season is still a few months away, an ideal time to think about your training and the race performances it produces.

 

‘Train Hard’, what does that really mean?  Many feel you have not trained hard unless you are in a pool of sweat, vision blurred, legs wobbly and hardly able to support you.  This is hard training and the subsequent adaptions will help you in a specific area of your performance.  For others you are not training hard until you have been on the road for hours, run out of food and water and are dragging slowly home in a world of pain ready to eat the whole contents of the kitchen.  This is hard training and your body will learn from this also, adapting to cope better with this type of activity.  Do you spend an hour at the pool improving your troublesome swim stroke, or an extra hour out on your bike which you love?  That fast bike ride may seem good ‘Hard Training’ but would the improved swimming technique from your mentally hard but physically easy swim have improved your whole triathlon race.  For others hard training is fitting twenty hours a week around a job and family commitments.  Cramming as much mileage in as possible, getting out in all weathers, working through those annoying injuries, getting out there even when your body is crying out for rest.  This is certainly hard training like all the other examples, but will any of those training methods mean you can ‘Race Easy’ when that big event comes round.

 

Most of you reading this will be in the world of endurance sport.  Sorry to disappoint you but your 5km runs, 10 mile cycle time trial and your supersprint triathlons are all endurance sports.  Will your ‘Hard Training’ deliver the result you are seeking?  So your ‘hard’ forty five minute cycle turbo session, where you stumble away from the bike, steaming like a race horse is excellent for developing your body to produce power at or above your aerobic threshold.  You will develop pure speed and for races under an hour in duration you will probably produce some good performance improvements.  However you are training in a zone where your body burns its available fuel very quickly.  This is fine if you have enough in the tank to complete your event but once the tank is empty your performance dramatically drops so training this way will not allow you to race your two hour plus event ‘Easy’.

 

So you have just dragged home from another long run, or a day out on the bike.  You have covered some hard miles, just made it home as your pace slowed and you slump on to the sofa with a well earned packet of biscuits.  That was some ‘hard training’.  It will help you cope with the distances involved in your endurance event but will it give you the speed you need to compete?  No it will not prepare you to ‘Race’ easy’.

 

How about the lifestyle athlete, every inch of those training miles is logged and scrutinised.  That ride which was 96 miles to home just had to have another four mile loop added so it looked better when shared on line.  When waking feeling tired and ill they still get the training done.  Ok the pace was slow and the heart rate very high but the miles were logged.  Wake with a sore leg, it’s been sore for a while now but a long run is planned so they run anyway.  There’s a bit of a limp but the run is logged and the miles in the bank.  Will this pattern of ‘Hard Training’ give the desired result on that long distance event? No they will probably start a broken and over trained athlete who struggles home well below their potential, not racing ‘Easy’.

 

So this ‘Training Hard Racing Easy’ is not quite as simple as those four words make out.  For endurance racing you actually need a combination of training fast – hard, training slow – hard, training long – hard, training technique – hard, training digestion and hydration – hard and resting – hard.  This is not helped by the proportions changing depending on what you are racing, a 10mile cycle TT is not the same as an Ironman Triathlon, the training is made up of similar components but vastly different proportions.

 

We know ‘Train Hard – Race Easy’ is the right way to go but how to ‘Train Hard’ is not so simple.  The athlete jogging gently along the road as if she has all the time in the world may be training harder than you tearing past on your bike at 30mph.  The athlete swimming drills slowly in the next lane may be training harder than you as you tear past doing 10 x 100m efforts.  The athlete sitting at home with his feet up may be training harder than you as you cycle along coughing and spluttering through a winter cold.

 

If you are unsure of how to balance your training to ensure all your hard training goes towards that easy race day you should consult an experienced coach.  Most will happily chat for free at a training session to set you on the right path.  You can even employ them to set a detailed training plan for you, to ensure you are doing the right proportions of training for your key events and to be able to quickly spot the signs things are going wrong.  If you do not have the knowledge or experience to know how to train for your planned events ensure you are guided by someone who does.

 

Now is the time to develop your training plans for the coming year.  Think about what you are doing ‘Train Smart – Race Easy’.

 

Keep warm

 

Mark

www.triharman.com

Winter Training Focus

As the season draws to an end, you may be celebrating a summer of success or wondering why all that training has not provided the race performances you expected. This is the time to sit down with a coach and discuss what you need to do to improve that race day performance in 2016.

You cannot escape the truth that winter training builds the foundations for your summer performance. If you do your race specific preparation and spring time speed work on a weak foundation your performances will suffer through injury and insufficient endurance. Look back at your past season, could you race strongly through the whole race or did you fail to match your potential when it mattered. Triathletes, were your run splits way off your run only personal best or were you beaten by athletes who are much slower than you at a shorter time trial? If the answer is yes you need to develop your engine and now is the time to do it.

Now the good news, your heart and lungs ‘the engine’ have no idea if you are swimming, cycling or running. They just respond to the bodies demand for oxygen and nutrients, like any other part of the body they will develop to match the demand placed upon them. Sitting on the sofa because it’s a bit chilly outside is really easy on the heart and lungs, they can cope with that just fine so there is no need to get stronger. Doing the odd fast and furious training session, football match, gym workout or cross country race is also quite manageable as other energy systems supplement ‘the engine’. Go through the winter like this and if you are lucky you will have maintained your current level of efficiency so when your spring training starts you are on that same wobbly foundation and your race results will be the same.

We previously dealt with planning your race season, you need to be just as careful planning your winter training. If you want to do the odd football match (take care for injury), cross country race or cyclocross/MTB race they will not do any harm and can be a fun way to develop athletic skills. Consider them an addition to your core winter training work which should be based on extended periods of aerobic activity, with some threshold work to boost that adaption process.

At the seasons end review the state of your body, be honest with yourself and seek the opinion of others you trust. Are you injured? That annoying niggle you have been carrying through the summer needs to be dealt with before it becomes a real problem. Are you too heavy, can you lose some body weight without compromising your health and wellbeing? Do you lack the strength you require in your arms, legs or core? Are you just a little burned out and suffering with poor motivation? Now is the time to take a little break, just ease back and let your body recover. Give that injury a chance to heal, concentrate on your swimming technique, relax and regain your desire to train.

Most athletes will only survive a couple of weeks ‘off training’ but triathlon training allows you to satisfy the cravings without putting undue stress on any injury you are letting heal. If it’s a sore shoulder, ease back on the swimming and concentrate on those long steady bike and run sessions. If your leg is injured get in the pool for long steady swims, concentrating on those technique and efficiency drills. If you are a single sport athlete consider trying another endurance activity which will give that injured area a break while still keeping active. Winter is the perfect time to introduce new techniques when your body and mind can adapt away from the pressure of competition.

Developing that aerobic base is not achieved overnight, it comes from sustained periods of aerobic activity, good nutrition and plenty of rest. That 3 hour group ride which is a bit slow for you normally may be just what you need to get some miles in without exceeding your aerobic threshold. Its sociable and the motivation of the group may get you out in weathers when a 45 minute intense turbo session seems much more suitable. The group ride will add to your base fitness, the turbo session is really too short to do much good. Get out and run long steady distance efforts, keep the intensity down to a chatting level, running with a partner or group will add interest and reduce the temptation to speed up to ‘get it done’. Choose an interesting route across the fields and tracks, run with the dog, run somewhere you need to go, but whatever you do maintain that steady aerobic level.

If you intend to build this solid foundation of endurance you cannot miss out the long steady sessions, however you can boost the adaption affect by stressing your body right up to its aerobic threshold. This is achieved by adding an effort session into your training. These sessions are not sprints or lung bursting hills, they will start with just short periods of effort where you add speed or resistance to get your heart rate up to its aerobic threshold. There are techniques to calculate this using heart rate graphs or more accurate blood testing, but for the average athlete a simple test is ‘can you speak’. Being able to hold a long conversation is too slow, only managing one or two words is too fast, aim for a level where you can say short sentences, a speed where you could continue at that pace for longer if you needed to, but the recovery period is still welcome. To stay near the threshold through the session you should have 3, 4 or 5 minute efforts, then a short active recovery of 1 or 2 minutes before the next effort. As you develop the skill of judging your threshold and your base fitness improves you can lengthen the efforts and reduce the recovery to just that needed to complete the next effort properly. Eventually you will be able to swim/bike or run continuously at your threshold pace for extended periods. These are taxing sessions which will take a couple of days to properly recover from, don’t do too much of it keep the majority of your sessions long and steady.

Follow this guidance through the winter and you will get to spring with a solid aerobic base on which to introduce your speed work. This will ensure you have the best chance to perform as you should next season.

Mark
www.triharman.com

Pilates was created by a man called Joseph Pilates back in the 20^th century.   He claimed that in 10 sessions you would feel the difference, in 20 sessions you would see the difference and in 30 you would have a whole new body.  Now that’s quite a claim!  I came to Pilates in 2000 having attended my first class and was completely won over in the first hour because of the way it made me feel at the end of it.  I subsequently qualified and have been teaching it ever since.

I am currently offering Pilates classes in East Runton, and Cromer to which you can find details at www.triharman.com  with exact times and days.

Many top athletes and dancers use Pilates to assist with their training.  For example, Darcey Bussell a well known and loved ballerina and now Pilates instructor uses this method to maintain her health and mobility.  In an interview in the Evening Standard nearly three years ago she said:“I truly believe Pilates is such a good thing, especially if you have had children”.

Pilates isn’t like other classes such as circuit training, weight machines or the gym as these types of exercise aim to increase bulk of the strongest muscles (the superficial muscles on the outside) , shortening and tightening them in the process.  Pilates achieves the opposite, concentrating on the deepest core muscles, (the abdominals) lengthening and elongating them giving the appearance of longer and slimmer muscles.  Consider the core muscles like the base of a pyramid, the wider the base or foundations the stronger at the peak the pyramid can be. This is the same with the body, the stronger the core muscles are the more support they provide for movement, stability and flexibility.

We all feel we have to go hard and fast to achieve the best results, to the point of exhaustion, experiencing muscle soreness and aches.  This soreness is caused by a build-up of lactic acid, little stretching and even tearing of the muscle fibres.   With Pilates the aim is not in the quantity of exercises but in the quality and therefore exercises are performed with very few repetitions, with precision and effectively.  In Pilates you should never feel pain. As I said before, excessive high intensity exercise causes muscles to tighten and shorten pulling bones and joints out of alignment and this is usually when you start to experience pain and a changed lack of movement.  Pilates will help you be aware of any weaknesses and postural problems and help you correct them.  Once you have learnt to stretch and lengthen the muscles posture will be improved bringing better alignment and balance to your body.

Pilates can help with spinal problems, neck and shoulder tension, promote core stability.  Having strong abdominal muscles will support your lumbar spine and will help you to maintain good posture and will hold the internal organs in the correct position.  Consider your core muscles.

Many of us will suffer from a back problem from time to time and is one of the biggest causes of lost working hours in the Western World.  Our current lifestyles, sitting at desks, driving long hours, are overweight etc. make you very vulnerable to chronic back pain.  Understanding the causes of back pain, when postural  alignment is consistently wrong puts more and more strain on the spinal joints resulting with  weakened muscles and poor posture.  Core stability is key to the body working correctly so it is crucial that we work the abdominals, pelvis, glutes and hamstrings to help us protect ourselves from this back pain.

Pilates is an all over body workout, it does not concentrate on one particular area but all your joints and muscles as a whole.  After all, in every day activity you use different muscles for different movements.  If the core muscles are strong and supportive, the superficial muscles will have a greater range of movement.  A good Pilates Instructor will work from top to bottom and from side to side including all the major joints of the body with gentle exercises and low repetitions.  The exercises will flow, be precise and aim to strengthen and lengthen the muscles.  All and everyone can benefit from doing Pilates even those with serious disabilities or mobility problems.

As athletes we often get carried away with always working very hard to achieve great results but will neglect that the body needs to be stretched and needs ample time to recover and repair itself.  Spending a minimum of 15 minutes stretching after exercising you will reap the benefits.  Doing at least an hour of Pilates a week the results will be tenfold.

Consider doing Pilates for life, getting into the habit of doing Pilates and always thinking of correcting your posture without putting undue stress on your joints.  Doing Pilates regularly will improve your everyday life it’s just a matter of dedicating an hour or more a week to it.  You will see and feel the benefits within weeks as Joseph Pilates said, “In 30 weeks you will have a whole new body”.

Teresa Harman
www.triharman.com